The Senate is ramping up its efforts to speed up the deployment of self-driving cars.

Executives from Toyota and GM, as well as other stakeholders in the space, testified in a hearing on Tuesday about how they believe the government should regulate the technology, and why the regulatory frameworks currently in place are serving as a hurdle to deployment, according to Recode.

This comes a day after Senators John Thune and Gary Peters announced that they, along with the Transportation Committee, would craft self-driving car regulations that would remove hurdles and advance innovation of self-driving vehicle technology.

Here's what an eventual bill might do:

Update vehicle standards to no longer assume a driver is necessary behind the wheel. Currently, the federal government's automotive laws and regulations are based on the assumption that a driver is behind the wheel operating the vehicle. It's possible such a law would remove the need for cars to have a pedal or steering wheel, which would enable the testing of cars sans drivers, something The Hill notes Thune and Peters are particularly interested in.

Differentiate between semi and fully autonomous vehicles. Confusion over what constitutes a fully vs. semi autonomous vehicle can be problematic to the testing and deployment of self-driving cars. For example, Uber clashed with the state of California over the definition of "autonomous," leading to the state deeming Uber's tests as illegal. Clearing up terminology could prevent future confusion when semi-autonomous cars hit the roads en masse.

Further, the government might create a universal baseline technological and physical standard self-driving cars must meet. Similar to the way the federal government currently has safety and other baseline standards for traditional vehicles, it could craft a baseline technological and safety standard for self-driving vehicles. This could mean, for example, a mandatory minimum number of LiDAR sensors or cameras on vehicles.

Here are some potential implications of such a bill:

If a steering wheel and pedals are no longer legally required, a self-driving car without a driver will be tested on public roads this year, as BI Intelligence predicted. To this point, all prominent tests of self-driving cars that have occurred on public roads in the US have had a driver behind the wheel, but all those vehicles have had steering wheels and pedals. If the federal government changes the law so that a steering wheel and pedals are no longer required in autonomous vehicles, driverless tests could be conducted.

Varying state laws may not then be the barrier to adoption that experts previously thought them to be. Last year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced it would not prevent individual states from crafting their own rules governing self-driving cars, which many feared would create different standards and be a major barrier to adoption. But if the federal government moves to craft universal baseline standards, it might not be as difficult for companies to test autonomous vehicles in states where there are no additional standards, as they would only need to conform to the federal guidelines.

But states that don't currently have self-driving car laws in place could seek to craft ones based on the new federal legal standards. While the federal government allows any state to craft its own laws on self-driving cars, many states, such as Massachusetts, don't currently have regulations in place governing driverless vehicles. These states could follow the new federal guidelines to craft their own self-driving car laws if such a bill becomes law.

BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has compiled a detailed report on self-driving cars that examines the major strides automakers and tech companies have made to overcome the barriers currently preventing fully autonomous cars from hitting the market. Further, the report examines global survey results showing where fully autonomous cars are highly desired.

Here are some key takeaways from the report:

Three barriers have been preventing fully autonomous cars from hitting the road: 1) high technological component prices; 2) varying degrees of consumer trust in the technology; and 3) relatively nonexistent regulations. Howev er, in the past six months, there have been many advances in overcoming these barriers.

Technology has been improving as new market entrants find innovative ways to expand on existing fully autonomous car technology. As a result, the price of the components required for fully autonomous cars has been dropping.

Consumer trust in fully autonomous vehicle technology has increased in the past two years.

California became the first US state to propose regulations. California's regulations stipulate that a fully autonomous car must have a driver behind the wheel at all times, discouraging Google's and Uber's idea of a driverless taxi system.

In full, the report:

Examines consumer trust in fully autonomous vehicles

Identifies technological advancements that have been made in the industry

Analyzes the cost of fully autonomous technology and identifies how cost is being reduced

Explains the current regulations surrounding fully autonomous cars

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